[Ads-l] Slight antedating of "banana republic" (May, 1901)

[Stephen Goranson]

Tenuous as the following may be:


1891, April 3

"The Italian Situation

The trouble with Italy shows no interesting developments. Grim-visaged War has not yet appeared before the floodlights, albeit the marquis of Rudina [Antonio Starabba], who appears to have charge of the rest of the banana statesmen [not a hapax; also attested in an 1895 Tacoma seaport story], is supposed to be carrying on private rehearsals. The most significant thing in the dispatches...is the prominence given to A. G. Porter [sic], the American minister at Rome....."

Apparently, according to The Atlanta Constitution, Porter was dealing with several murders, assassinations or executions, including that of David Hennessy, a detective in New Orleans, who captured an Italian criminal, and was later killed, allegedly as part of waterfront Mafia feuding.


Stephen Goranson



________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <...> on behalf of Bonnie Taylor-Blake <...>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2018 2:56 PM
To: ...
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Slight antedating of "banana republic" (May, 1901)

Oops, and now I see that Michael Quinion made the connection to O. Henry's
_Cabbages and Kings_ (1904) all the way back in 2002. (Fred Shapiro started
that discussion.)

I should've known that the original discovery of a link to William Sydney
Porter was made on this very list.

-- Bonnie


On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 2:27 PM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake <...> wrote:

Have we done "banana republic" recently?
>
> The OED's first example for "banana republic" dates to 1935.
> Merriam-Webster and the Wikipedia page for "banana republic" give 1904 as
> its first usage.  The latter credits William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) for
> this coinage, which appeared in his book _Cabbages and Kings_ (published in
> 1904).
>
> The chapters/stories within _Cabbages and Kings_ were published elsewhere
> before they appeared as a whole in 1904, however.
>
>
> 1) The first appearance of "banana republic" that I've managed to find is
> in O. Henry's "Money Maze," published in *Ainslee's Magazine* in May, 1901.
>
> "At that time we had a treaty with about every foreign country except
> Belgium and that banana republic, Anchuria." (p. 305)
>
>
> 2) The term also appeared in his "Rouge Et Noir: A Little Business Romance
> of the Banana Trade," published in *Ainslee's* in December, 1901.
>
> "The banana republic of Costaragua has, practically, two capitals." (p.
> 452)
>
>
> 3) By that month, however, the term was also used in the popular press.
>
> "It is not unusual for the citizens of one of these 'banana republics,' as
> they are sometimes called, to change their rulers a half-dozen times in as
> many years, though the state constitution almost invariably prescribes a
> tenure of four years for each President elected to office."
>
> From S.M.B., "What the insurgents in Colombia are fighting for," *The
> Inter Ocean* (Chicago), Magazine Section, p. 2, 1 December 1901.
>
>
> I have no reason to believe that Porter/O. Henry didn't coin "banana
> republic." Perhaps the *Inter Ocean* writer (with his "banana republics, as
> they are sometimes called") had simply picked up the term from O. Henry's
> just-published short stories.
>
> -- Bonnie


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